Gary Thomas is a writer in residence at Second Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, and an adjunct faculty member teaching on spiritual formation at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of over a dozen books, including Sacred Marriage, Sacred Pathways, Pure Pleasure, Sacred Parenting, and the Gold Medallion Award-winning Authentic Faith.

Author Archives: Gary L. Thomas

In our enthusiasm to celebrate children (a good thing), we are sometimes tempted to overlook the key Christian doctrine of original sin. A child can be raised by godly parents, yet still choose to live an ungodly life: A wise son heeds his father’s instruction, but a mocker does not listen to rebuke. – Proverbs…

Spiritual impact is by no means directed solely by biology. On the contrary, many adoptive fathers and stepfathers have had far more impact on their children’s lives than the children’s biological fathers. One mother told me of the time her husband and their adopted son went to a Promise Keeper’s rally. One of the speakers…

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up. — 1 Thessalonians 5:11 In the classic 1904 novel Freckles by Gene Stratton-Porter, a kindly couple gives a young man who is “intensely eager to belong somewhere” a new chance in life by offering him employment.1 The boss’s wife treats Freckles like a son, becoming the…

To cherish is to heal. To ridicule your spouse or to be apathetic about your spouse is to further injure them. Contempt merely reinforces the negativity from earlier in your spouse’s life. You push her down lower and lower. Cherishing lifts her higher and higher. To not cherish is to reinforce the worst and make…

One of the best ways to cherish your spouse with words is by affirming the gospel — the essential message of Christianity — and regularly planting its truth in your lover’s heart and mind. Sometimes we have to remind our spouses of the gospel—total and complete acceptance before God because of the finished work of…

Deliberately choosing the way we speak is essential to a lifetime of cherishing our mates. The early church father John Chrysostom urged husbands (speaking about their wives), “Never call her by her name alone, but with terms of endearment also, with honor, with much love. If you honor her, she won’t require honor from others;…

Love is the muscle of marriage. Cherish is the heart of marriage. — Gary Thomas “To love and to cherish… till death do us part.” How many of us said these vows on the day we were married? Whether we spoke with a nervous, shaky voice or a confident, exuberant promise, most of us —…

Crafting a Cherishing Mindset You can pay $25,000 for a watch that will never disappoint you. It will tell time with mathematical precision. If you look at it fifteen times a day, it will serve you each time — and never get tired doing so. And it will never complain if you look at it…

God, may Your fullness flood through their entire beings. — Ephesians 3:19b The Voice What would change if God’s fullness flooded through our entire being? If that were to happen, we would need to be willing to surrender every part of our lives to the Lord. Often, this is not the case. We surrender some of…

As a young man, I always thought silence was the preferred pathway to the heart of God. The church I attended put a comment in the weekly bulletin that went something like this: “Please maintain an attitude of reverence as we prepare our hearts for worship.” And, indeed, there are deep roots in Christian tradition testifying to the spiritual value…